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NASA Public-Affairs Appointee Resigns in Disgrace
Posted by
jamie
on Wed Feb 08, 2006 08:27 AM
from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
belmolis writes "George C. Deutsch, who tried to muzzle top NASA climate scientist James Hansen and ordered NASA web designers to add the word 'theory' to every mention of the Big Bang, has resigned. The New York Times reports
that NASA declines to discuss the reasons for his resignation, but that it came the same day that Texas A&M University, from which Deutsch claimed on his resume to have graduated, revealed that he had attended the university but did not complete his degree."
The New York Times reports it today, but as of yesterday, it was the Times that had unquestioningly passed along the falsehood of Deutsch's graduation, and it was the blog Scientific Activist whose investigation revealed he'd left before graduating to work on the Bush reelection campaign. For more on the 24-year-old political appointee's interesting viewpoints, see World O' Crap; on Monday, we covered the anger over his attempts to squelch science -- something that, sadly, Jim Hansen has gotten used to.
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Good News and Bad News (Score:4, Insightful)
The increasing availability and ease of access of information is making it increasingly difficult to get away with lying.
Good news for the people, bad news for governments.
On a related note, that same increasing availability is starting to render traditional news outlets [nytimes.com] obselete. No wonder they're so upset [slashdot.org].
Re:Good News and Bad News (Score:5, Insightful)
86 Evangelical Leaders Join to Fight Global Warming [nytimes.com]
Could this actually mean that well intentioned christians are actually beginning to crawl out from under the thumb of the right-wing extremists like Dobson, Robertson, Bush, etc?
I know this is only a small beginning and may be offering false hope, but at least its better than the complete lack of any hope for American socieity I'd been feeling recently.
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Re:Good News and Bad News (Score:5, Interesting)
For as much as I like to harp on the religious right (all religions, not just christianity), it is refreshing to see people who understand that science is science and religion is religion and there is no problem with the two co-existing so long as neither tries to intrude onto the others territory. Though it is interesting to note that religion has asked science to help solve at least one of its mysteries, the shroud of Turin.
Every time I hear someone say, "But it's only a theory, not a fact" I cringe and then immediately ask them if they have a problem with the Theory of Electromagnetism or the Theory of General Relativity since they too are "just theories" and not facts. The usual response is a blank stare as their mind tries to not assplode from having to defend such a ridiculous statement.
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Teach them what THEORY actually means.. (Score:4, Informative)
Theory - 1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Hypothesis - 1. A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation.
There is a definition of "theory" that means what they think it means but that's not the same definition that science uses.
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Re:Teach them what THEORY actually means.. (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't change their mind but at least they can't claim they weren't informed of the differences the next time someone (again) corrects them.
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Re:Good News and Bad News (Score:5, Insightful)
You're in good company. Lord Macaulay in his 1841 speech to parliament on the issue of copyright extension had to deal with exactly this misunderstanding of what a "theory" is:
My honourable and learned friend talks very contemptuously of those who are led away by the theory that monopoly makes things dear. That monopoly makes things dear is certainly a theory, as all the great truths which have been established by the experience of all ages and nations, and which are taken for granted in all reasonings, may be said to be theories. It is a theory in the same sense in which it is a theory that day and night follow each other, that lead is heavier than water, that bread nourishes, that arsenic poisons, that alcohol intoxicates.
Always happy to plug one of my favorite writers. Macaulay's riposte probably works better than yours because he uses more homely examples.
If I had to put the missing point in a nutshell, I'd do it this way: in science, not all theories are true, but all truths are theories. Of course it's a bit of an overstatement, in that one can certainly talk about an individual fact in isolation. But as soon as you try to connect facts, you have a theory.
Of course religion has its theories as well, which are called "doctrines". For example you have the doctrine of original sin, and the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, which I believe any fundamentalist should be familiar with. These are, within a certain scope "testable", in the sense they can be compared to scriptural sources. The difference between a doctrine and a theory is the ultimate test, the foundation upon which all other tests reside.
In religion, this is mystical experience. The Christian experiences the Bible as a manifestation of God's grace and love, and therefore accepts it as authoritative. In science the foundation is sensory experience.
The reason then that many thoughtful religious people reject fundamentalism is that by confusing science and religion, you are in a sense denying grace itself. Fundamentalism is often mixed up with mystical movements like pentacostalism; indeed many individuals are both. But these are inconsistent. Fundamentalism is a form of pseudo-rationalism.
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Re:Good News and Bad News (Score:4, Informative)
The moment you say Law people assume it means an absolute fact, which, in a sense, it is. However, it is still a theory in the sense that it makes a prediction and as far as we know holds true but it is only for one specific event whereas a theory describes a series of events.
I'm having a running discussion on a tv web forum re: Evolution and ID and every time I use the Theory of Gravity the person keeps saying it's the Law of Gravity, as if that negates the fact it is still a theory.
Then again, the person has never admitted that my original statement, that Electromagnetism or General Relativity are also theories and I don't see them having an issue with them or any other theory.
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Re:Good News and Bad News (Score:5, Interesting)
Coincidentally, this is the quote of the day when I logged into Google -
"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."
- Stephen Jay Gould
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Re:Good News and Bad News (Score:5, Funny)
That wouldn't piss anyone off at all.
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Re:Good News and Bad News (Score:5, Insightful)
There are exceptions, with no sharp cut off where "Law" became deprecated, but it's usage is far more of a social and philosophical phenomenon than a scientific one.
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Re:With Increasing Information comes.... (Score:5, Informative)
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Jim Henson spins in his grave (Score:5, Funny)
Number of points (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Deutsch is young. True, while at 24, Deutsch is young, that really does not say anything about his ability to be a spokesperson for science policy....if he is capable of representing the science for NASA and not necessarily a political agenda.
2. Deutsch did not graduate college. The fact that he is not a college graduate does not in of itself eliminate him from a spokespersons job. However, the major issue is that he lied about his graduation and because of that lapse in integrity should not be trusted.
3. Scientific integrity. NASA is an organization that should be proud of its scientific accomplishments and should care enough to represent those achievements to the world through the best possible spokespersons possible. Having these positions as appointed posts rather than earned posts or hires based on merit circumvents this process.
4. Motivations. Placing limits on science by appointing sycophantic toadies who are carrying out a politically and/or religiously motivated agenda is becoming a recurring theme in this administration which leads one to suspect potentially other agendas.
Re:Just one apparatchik -- there are others (Score:5, Insightful)
But he represents a more fundamental problem: the way we govern our country is broken. Given that, it's not surprising that the government is dysfunctional in the realm of space science. It's dsyfunctional period.
Look, the guy's 24 years old and he gets a political appointment? Now prove to me this country isn't being run by an aristocracy. It used to be connected people got their kids internships, or made congressional pages. They didn't get them policy level poliltical appointments.
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Could be a win-win... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Could be a win-win... (Score:5, Funny)
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What you people don't understand.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What you people don't understand.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Cronyism doesn't work (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that this guy is found out to be a fraud, it begs the question as to how many other people are holding positions that they neither deserve nor are qualified to hold?
And how many more qualified individuals were passed over because of cronyism?
The US Government should do a resume audit to find out who actually went to college and worked where they say they did.
But, of course, this will never happen.
OOOHH I know! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's start with the President! *ducks*
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no trend?!? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a notable excerpt:
And he's ranked 7 out of 15 for hacktitude.
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Re:Cronyism doesn't work (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, this is a trend now. Political reliability is evidently the only measure of competence for this administration. I think the inability to find a reliable stooge is why the FDA has been without a Commissioner for the largest fraction of a President's term in the history of the agency, by way of a further example.
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"He did a heckuva job!" (Score:5, Informative)
MIchael Brown, the guy Bush picked to head FEMA, had no experience doing disaster recovery, having been fired from his previous job as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Assocation. However, Bush appointed him because he was the roommate of the college roommate of Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000 campaign manager and Brown's predecessor at FEMA.
Next, he nominated to the Supreme Court his personal lawyer Harriet Miers who had absolutely no judicial experience. Luckily she didn't get her "up or down" vote due to a Republican backlash (but probably for the wrong reasons).
And now we find that Bush appointed to NASA a 24-year old journalism major who dropped out of college but had all the qualifications of someone who worked on his campaign. And the guy was censoring real scientists!
This problem of Bush cronyism goes much further than just giving plum jobs to to one's friends. These types of appointments are dangerous to our democracy because they can do real damage (as we saw in Brown's case). The fundamental problem is Bush and his ilk value loyalty more than experience or expertise; they value faith more than facts.
Re:"He did a heckuva job!" (Score:5, Informative)
Bolten as U.N. Ambassador.
Ellen Sauerbrey as (recess appointment to) Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration ($700M budget).
Melvin Sembler, youth cult leader, appointed to Amabassador to Italy.
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Re:"He did a heckuva job!" (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:"He did a heckuva job!" (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not suggesting that Miers was suitable for the high court, but a lack of judicial experience doesn't automatically make someone incompetent to serve there. A few other justices that started their judicial career with the Supreme Court: John Jay, John Marshall, Earl Warren, and William Rehnquist.
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What's going on? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's bad enough that a 24 year old was trying to tell NASA what to do but he never even graduated college. Whoever gave him that job should be fired along with him.
On a more personal note, Serves you right you dozy eejit.
Please allow me to say: (Score:5, Insightful)
Disgrace and shame is better than folks like this deserve, but it's the best we can realistically hope to see. The appointment of political officers to oversee scientific speech smacks of the bad old days of the Cold War, and I mean the BAD guys.
Unfortunately, this is only one small win for the side of truth, justice, and the American way. We've still got a *long* way to go before honesty and integrity are restored to the government.
Appointees (Score:5, Insightful)
They lie? Don't all politicians? They're too white? They're too left? They're too right? They're unqualified? They're qualified but they don't have real life experience? They're cronies?
Let's look at how this works in a free market:
John Johnson hires his son John Johnson, Jr, to help run his company. Nepotism. John I dies. John Jr takes over, and the general history of business shows us the John Jr has never felt pain, so he doesn't work as hard as he should. Business fails. The market solution is to give the person with the best output and lowest price the work. John Jr rarely will be that person.
In the market of government, we don't really have much to control. We can't vote with our dollars OR vote with our ballot. We can't directly affect the actions of the appointee, and some appointees are so powerful it amazes me that the country doesn't cry foul more often (see Ben Bernanke).
Positions of power are better suited to be competitive rather than elected, and better elected rather than appointed. Do you feel better when "your man" is the appointee? Do you forget all the damage that occurs when it isn't "your guy?"
More cronyism, what the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More cronyism, what the hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
All this administration needs (and probably wants) are warm bodies it can manipulate. These eager young kids are a dime a dozen, and can be replaced at the drop of a hat once they're exposed. Just look at the amount if work it took to expose and out the NASA guy: one week of intense media pressure. How many hundreds...thousands more are there dispersed through the government?
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Resume (Score:5, Funny)
Only a theory... (Score:4, Insightful)
Apointer needs to resign too... (Score:5, Insightful)
This event is a disgrace to the entire scientific community in the United States.
Re:The Big Bang (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The Big Bang (Score:5, Funny)
Every time a Christian, Muslim or Jew speaks of anything to do with their religion, they must use the phrase "ancient tribal myth" in the same sentence.
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Re:The Big Bang (Score:4, Informative)
So you're saying the Bible hasn't been proven wrong except for the places that it's been proven wrong that don't count?
Read the book "Misquoting Jesus : the story behind who changed the Bible and why" by Bart D. Ehrman and you'll find a whole bunch of places that the Bible is "wrong" or at least added onto by scribes.
Frex: that story of Jesus telling the mob to "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone" was not in the original texts.
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Re:The Big Bang (Score:5, Informative)
That's probably a good place to start learning about the current state of cosmology. It usually takes more than a decade of dedicated learning to master the topic, so take your time.
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Re:The Big Bang (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:The Big Bang (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The Big Bang (Score:5, Informative)
The further away they are, the faster they seem to be going. That hints at some sort of event, roughly 10 billion years ago, that forced them all away and in fact created these objects. That's coupled with a background microwave radiation we'd expect from a universe at about 3 degrees Kelvin, as if the matter that spread out has cooled down to about that average temperature.
Other theories, such as the "Cyclic" theory assume that the universe keeps exploding and contracting, but it's hard to detect enough matter in the universe to allow it to re-contract from gravitation. Or the "Steady-State" theory assumes that the matter, the universe itself somehow keeps regenerating itself over time: some weird quantum ideas describe universes where matter forms from vacuum, but those theories don't predict the actual measurements very well.
So there are 3 common theories: the Big Bang explains the existing evidence well, but leaves people wondering "what happened before" and "what will happen later". Like gravity or light, the basic facts seem well explained, but there are weird details that do require more work to really understand.
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Re:The Big Bang (Score:5, Informative)
You missed one thing. The rate at which they are traveling seems to be accelerating as well.
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Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been 24 years old. And, at that age, you think you know EVERYTHING. And, I have been involed in politics (when I was about 24 years old, as a matter of fact). Guess what? In politics, when you are on the winning side and you get a political appointee job, you have a huge "ego factor".
A 24-year old political appointee is, almost by definition, a cocky S.O.B. (not to say all 24-year old political appointees are cocky, but there is a high probability). Asking him to "keep his feet calm" is like asking a shark to ignore the chum in the water.
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Re:Theory not a bad order (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, the problem here is not the description of the Big Bang as a theory (clearly correct) but that the word is used in a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by confusing the colloquial meaning of "theory" (i.e. not much more than a guess) with the scientific meaning of "theory". I'm betting that this guy didn't insist on NASA desribing rocketry as a "theory".
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Re:Theory not a bad order (Score:4, Funny)
The fact here is that some snotnose bush brat is telling scientist that they must explicitly state the obvious as part of a plan to diminish the value of science on impressionable young minds. If something logical and rational were presented factually, the flock might wander. So "theories" are for science, and facts are for the bible!
"Penguins ain't natural, they was chemically man-made like The Incredible Hulk."
"Anthony, how do you know this about the penguins?"
"It's in the Bible."
"It ain't in the Bible."
"It's in the Bible wit' Noah! Noah didn't take no penguins wit' 'em on the ark, so therefore penguins ain't natural. Read your Bible. There's no mention of penguins whatsoever."
"Okay."
-- The State
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Re:Theory (Score:4, Informative)
Yes and no. Yes Big Bang is just a theory, like every single scientific "law" or "fact". There is not absolute truth in science. The problem is not calling Big Bang a theory, the problem is that theory, for the common mortal is nothing more than a "hunch" a "wild idea".
Scientists need to come up with a different term for theory. Or they need to push a major PR campaign explaining what a theory is for science, that a theory for science isn't just a hunch but something that is backed up by empyrical evidence. They have to stop giving fundamentalists a way to attack science by calling everything that goes through the scientific method "just a theory".
Deutsch called Big Bang a theory to imply it's not good science and that there is a good alternative in God/Creation. He clearly aimed to discredit the scientific work done on Big Bang to advance his radical and/or fundamentalist and/or religious view.
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Re:I Work For NASA and Most of This is Patently Fa (Score:5, Insightful)
---Oh really? What do you do exactly?
So I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies.
---That's cool because I wouldn't want this to distract you from your work.
Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about.
----Welcome to Slashdot!!
But trust me.... You don't.
----Oh really? Is this some kind of Jedi mind trick?
I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you dont know what you are talking about.
-----Well, reality is a subjective thing these days, but sounding smart is an art form.
This is how bad info gets passed around.
---As we all know that everybody reads Slashdot as fact - and there is no room for dissent!
If you dont know about the topic....Dont make yourself sound like you do.
----Well, it would be nice if you could give us an example here because it sounds like you are doing the same.
Cuz some
---Sad, isn't it? But those people aren't the ones we are worried about, just the guys who resign in disgrace for making us try to believe lies that we hear from them.
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Re:Can we please... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know -- at an agency like NASA which presumably has a large number of career scientists who have spent decades in their field (some of whom have spent over a decade on a single project like Stardust) -- a 24-year old, politically appointed, non-college graduate who tries to put Bush's political spin on science doesn't deserve anything better than kid. And, in fact, probably deserves worse.
A grossly underqualified person with no real world experience telling people many years his senior and way more qualified they need to call the Big Bang a theory (and whatever else he did) doesn't deserve anything but contempt and scorn.
Compared to what can only be called 'elder statesmen' of science, this guy is a kid. In this sense, 'kid' is used in the diminutive to refer to someone who is new to a field and doesn't have a lot of experience.
Heck, rookie quarterbacks get referred to as 'kid', even if they're in their early 20's.
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Re:Uh, it IS a theory (Score:5, Insightful)
He wasn't asking the web copy be changed from "Big Bang fact" to "Big Bang theory".
The Big Bang is a scientific theory, and it is valid to call it such. But to tack the word "theory" onto EVERY SINGLE MENTION of the term is not a clarification; it is a linguistic exercise designed to create uncertainty and doubt.
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BOLLOCKS! Reality Checking Crichton (Score:5, Informative)
Michael Crichton is out to make money. He gets money for giving his "daring" speech on the rubber chicken circuit. He gets money on sales of his latest shlock thriller, which has evil grant-hungry climate scientists running weather control machines to terrorize the populace.
Here is what actual climate scientists have to say about the claims in his novel:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74 [realclimate.org]
At CISCOP, Chris Mooney reviews State of Fear:
http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/crichton/ [csicop.org]
A look at the politics behind Crichton's crusade:
http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2005/02/01/robe
Who are your going trust, Crichton or scientists?
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/1/20/234126
OK. Maybe you can't trust scientists. How about the opinions of another author? Here is what Gregory Benford has to say:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050121/
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